37 posts categorized "International Olympic Committee"

May 20, 2011

So many remaining questions, so few answers related to Dick Ebersol's unexpected Thursday resignation as boss of NBC sports, for which Ebersol told me the primary issue was salary.

I don't expect any answers from Comcast, clearly a tight-lipped corporate beast rather than the NBC sports operation the media and public came to know under Ebersol.

He reveled in his high profile, had a substantial ego and spoke from the gut about any subject -- blasting Conan O'Brien a few months ago and, in our conversation Thursday, dismissing as essentially nonsensical ESPN's idea to show the Olympics live in the middle of the night.

Why, the two corporate communications flaks whose names were on the NBC Universal press release announcing Ebersol's departure (with a note saying they were the contacts for more information) have yet to respond in any fashion to emails sent Thursday requesting comment on a question about Comcast's continued interest in bidding for the Olympics.

So it doesn't seem worth my time to ask them about this scenario:

Was Comcast, the new parent company of NBC, deliberately stalling its contract negotiations with Ebersol until after the International Olympic Committee auction June 6-7 for U.S. television rights beyond 2012?

And why would they do that?

Ebersol's reputation as a TV sports major domo was built on the Olympics, which he had produced 10 times since 1992. HIs knowledge about how to present an Olympics -- and his passion for doing it - are unsurpassed. For more than 25 years, Olympic TV in the United States and Ebersol were a single entity.

Comcast had named Ebersol chairman of the NBC Sports Group when its purchase of the network was completed earlier this year. But if NBC did not get the rights to future Olympics, Ebersol would not be as valuable to Comcast, especially at a salary price he told me was substantial.

``I had a whole new job with suddenly thousands of new employees working for me,'' Ebersol said. ``Money is not a problem going forward in my life but I sure wanted a certain amount.''

Ebersol said he thought he and Comcast had been close to a deal three weeks ago but ``suddenly it just started getting more complicated.'' Was that an indication that Comcast really doesn't care about getting Olympic rights -- despite its apparent assurances in phone calls to the IOC that it remains interested?

His departure so close to the negotiations clearly discomfited the IOC. Its U.S. rights negotiator, Richard Carrion, selecting his words judiciously, told the New York Times the IOC was ``not crazy about the timing.''

The IOC places a high premium on long-term relationships -- to wit, its recent disdain for the U.S. Olympic Committee (and, by extension, U.S. cities bidding to host the Olympics) because of what had been revolving-door leadership.

The IOC greatly valued its 30-year relationship with Ebersol, who initiated the idea of having a U.S. network buy rights for more than one Winter and one Summer Games at a time, giving the IOC a great amount of guaranteed income over a long period.

Ebersol took the IOC at its word when it threw out $2 million as the number it wanted for rights to 2010 and 2012, and he even got NBC's then owner, GE, to pony up another $200 million for an IOC global sponsorship. That $2.2 billion turned out to be $900 million more than the only other serious bid, from Fox.

Such largesse added something to an IOC allegiance to Ebersol that clearly could have worked in NBC's favor next month; now it could work against NBC unless it makes an offer as overly generous as its last, which seems unlikely given the network's reported $223 million loss on the 2010 Winter Games.

The other dimension to Ebersol's departure is how it might affect the style of NBC's coverage at the 2012 Summer Games -- especially if some key players on his production team, like Peter Diamond and Gary Zenkel, also leave before the London Olympics.

Ebersol developed a particular and oft-criticized style of presenting the Olympics as a blend of personalities and narrative rather than simple broadcasting of events. He chose that approach to lure more than hard-core sports fans and wound up having women as the biggest piece of the U.S. viewing audience.

One key to his philosophy was that most viewers, sports junkies included, were completely unfamiliar with most Olympic events and with the top U.S. athletes, let alone athletes from the rest of the world, so simply letting the cameras focus on the action would not build an audience.

He also held coverage of some events, sometimes for several hours, until the prime-time package that drew the largest numbers of viewers -- 30 million a day at the 2008 Summer Games.

``I would always say the way we have done the Olympics in prime time is the reason they have been successful,'' Ebersol emphasized Thursday.

Ebersol's Olympic broadcast philosophy came partly from his mentor, ABC Olympic guru Roone Arledge, who added personality profiles -- called ``Up Close and Personal,'' a term that became an English idiom -- to the coverage.

It also came from geopolitics.

When NBC did its first Summer Games -- and the only one without Ebersol -- from Seoul in 1988, the Olympics as Cold War, sporting division, still was in play as a theme. Emphasizing whether the U.S. would win more medals than those nasty Soviet and East German commies was a sure way to galvanize viewer interest.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. In 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated.

``There was no more `us against them,' which had been the premier staple of the appeal of the Olympics,'' Ebersol said. ``That's when I really embarked on the whole storytelling thing.

``For a while, I made a few mistakes, with too many profiles and stuff. Post Sydney (2000), I cut them down by 35 or 40 percent and substituted for that by having all the major announcers tutored in the months before each Games on the stories we wanted them to tell. We didn't give them a script, because I don't believe in scripting, but they all knew the basic points.

``If you don't make those athletes empathetic, you won't get the women who make up 60 percent of the audience or the others who don't follow Olympic sports at all outside the Olympics.''

Ironically, Ebersol wound up giving fans of the less popular Olympic sports more live and total coverage than ever because of the ability to put events on cable networks that have multiplied in the past two decades and to stream them on the Internet.

NBC proved ahead of its time when it offered viewers of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games a similar option for more live coverage in premium subscription form: the Olympic Triplecast, an idea that got no traction then and cost NBC an estimated $100 million.

At the 2008 Olympics, NBC would stream 2,200 hours of 25 sports on nbcolympics.com and provide 225 hours of coverage on its over-the-air flagship network and six cable networks.

It's a shame Ebersol won't be producing the show in London. He once said 2012 would be his final Olympics as the hands-on force behind the scenes, but it seemed likely he would have continued through Rio in 2016 if NBC got the rights -- if, for no other reason, to have another shot at a Games in essentially the same time zone as the eastern United States.

Ebersol lived, breathed and literally dreamed the Olympics, eschewing high-priced hotel suites for humbler accommodations nearly next to his desk in the broadcast center. He told me Thursday this was probably the end of his days as a TV executive but he could see himself in a year or two wanting to produce -- although not for another network doing the Olympics.

As he looks back on his 10 Olympics, one moment stands out -- and it is characteristically one that he made happen: Olympic boxing champion and former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali lighting the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Centennial Summer Games in Atlanta.

The Atlanta 1996 organizers wanted the final torch-bearer to be the hometown boxing celebrity, former heavyweight champion and Olympic bronze medalist Evander Holyfield.

Ebersol saw the first Olympics in the U.S. South as an opportunity to show the world something of far greater symbolic power by focusing on the greatest global sports icon of the 20th Century, a man who had been vilified out of old racist habits and acrimony for his refusal to serve in the Vietnam era military as well as celebrated out of pure joy and amazement for his personality and achievements.

It would a sign of reconciliation, of a modern Atlanta, of a country trying to come to terms with its past.

``When Muhammad Ali came to the top of the ramp and Janet Evans lit the torch in his hand, that was the culmination of six months of talking them into choosing him,'' Ebersol said. ``To (Atlanta organizing committee chief executive) Billy Payne's eternal credit, since he was the one who had to make the decision, he listened.''

When Ali emerged at the Atlanta Olympic Stadium from the darkness, literal and figurative, there was a gasp from the crowd.

``It was one of the greatest things in my life,'' Ebersol said.

It was one of those rare moments that became larger than life, befitting both Ebersol's persona and his vision of the Olympics.

May 19, 2011

Dick Ebersol's surprising resignation Thursday as head of NBC Sports and Olympics does not end the network's interest in acquiring U.S. rights to the Olympics after 2012, both Ebersol and the International Olympic Committee's TV rights negotiator told me by telephone Thursday.

``I think they will be all in,'' Ebersol said of Comcast, NBC's parent company. ``I wouldn't be surprised to see (Comcast CEO) Brian Roberts lead the group that goes there (to Switzerland for the June 6-7 rights auction).

``I fully expect with Roberts there they will have a terrific bid.''

Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico, the IOC member handling the U.S. rights negotiations, said Comcast expressed a strong desire to keep a property NBC will have had for seven straight Summer Games and three straight Winter Games when the current deal expires after the 2012 London Olympics.

``I just had a call from Brian Roberts reassuring me they are extremely interested in continuing the relationship,'' Carrion said.

NBC has owned U.S. rights to the Summer Games since 1988 and the Winter Games since 2002.

Fox and ESPN are expected to bid for the next sets of rights. The IOC will entertain offers for two or four Olympics.

In a statement, IOC President Jacques Rogge reiterated what Carrion told the Tribune, describing Comcast's interest in the Olympics as ``firm.''

``Dick Ebersol is a consummate professional and has been instrumental in changing the way that television brought the Olympic Games to U.S. audiences,'' Rogge said in the statement.

Former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson, a consultant to the IOC on the bidding for U.S. rights to the 2010 Winter Games and 2012 Summer Games, said Thursday that NBC remains the favorite to get the future rights.

``I always felt NBC was the leader in the clubhouse and still do now,'' Pilson said. ``They view the Olympics as a franchise.''

The network issued a statement Thursday afternoon in which it announced that Mark Lazarus, currently president of NBC Sports Cable Group, will take over Ebersol's job as chairman of NBC Sports Group.

Ebersol, in the final year of a nine-year deal, said the sides could not agree on salary after almost four months of discussions.

``I thought about three weeks ago we were pretty close, and then suddenly last week it just started getting more complicated,'' Ebersol said. ``When we met this (Thursday) morning, they still weren't all the way where I wanted to be, and I said we ought to call it a day because I did not want to go to the (IOC auction) under any pretense I would be available.''

Comcast had named Ebersol as chairman of NBC Sports Group when its purchase of NBC Universal from GE was completed early this year. GE still holds 49 percent of NBC.

Ebersol, 63, has been a passionate proponent of the Olympics from every aspect, especially as a TV property, since he served as an ABC researcher at the 1968 Mexico City Games. The 1992 Barcelona Summer Games were the first Ebersol produced for NBC.

Ebersol said he could not imagine himself working for another network at the Olympics.

``I find that hard to believe,'' Ebersol said.

Ebersol said Thursday afternoon he had yet to contact anyone at the IOC or U.S. Olympic Committee, neither of which had any idea he was about to resign, but had received a ``very nice'' text message from Carrion.

Olympic sponsorship salesman Rob Prazmark of 21 Marketing said he was shocked by the news of Ebersol's resignation. A month ago, when he attended an NBC preview of its London 2012 coverage for potential advertisers, Prazmark saw an Ebersol who was ``the focal point of the presentation and very much into it.''

After bidding $900 million more than anyone else for rights to 2010 and 2012, including GE's $200 million investment in the IOC's TOP global sponsorship program, NBC lost a reported $223 million on the 2010 Winter Games despite strong ratings. That had prompted speculation Comcast would not be as aggressive in going after future rights.

``One of (the Comcast executives) said to me this morning after we shook hands and said goodbye that people would probably report it that way,'' Ebersol said. ``I said that's really amusing because we had never yet got to what the final bid number would be.''

ESPN executives have indicated if they got the U.S. rights they would show everything live, no matter what time of day or night. That is in direct contrast to Ebersol's philosophy of delaying broadcast of some events to put them in a prime time package for what he calls, ``perhaps the only family viewing experience left in television.''

``No matter how much anyone was going to moan about that, I was never going to move it,'' Ebersol said. ``The advertisers don't pay $750,000 for 30 seconds for (part) of the audience. They want it all at one time, not live at 4 a.m.

``I'm always amused by the ESPN crowd saying, `If we get them, we will put them on early in the morning.' I always said to my group, `Just like they put it (the 2010 soccer World Cup) on early in the morning from South Africa and averaged 3 million viewers at same time when Vancouver (2010 Winter) was 24 million and Beijing (2008 Summer) was just shy of 30 million.'''

Last week, Sports Business Journal reported that Disney, parent company of ESPN, might sweeten an ESPN bid with a similar IOC sponsorship buy. As an Olympic insider told me, imagine the power of Disney in coming up with marketing and promotion for things like Olympic Games mascots, which currently are of relatively little value.

``It would be very intertesting if Disney wound up as a TOP sponsor,'' Pilson said, ``but ESPN passed on an opportunity to bid for the Games before, and I'm not sure the Olympics are a terrific fit for ESPN given their current scheduling.

``It would almost be a validation of the (NBC-Comcast) merger to see NBC continue with the Olympics, just the way it has with hockey.''

Last month, Ebersol and the NHL announced a 10-year, $1.9 billion deal to keep the league on NBC and Versus, the cable network that Comcast brought to its marriage with NBC Universal.

NBC also owns rights to horse racing's triple crown; the Wimbledon and U.S. Open tennis tournaments; and the NFL's Sunday Night football package.

Photo: Dick Ebersol (right) and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at last month's announcement of the 10-year deal to keep the league on NBC and Versus. (Richard Drew / Associated Press)

But pretty darn resplendent, both as a measure of the USOC's performance in a down economy and as a measure of the new culture that began in Colorado Springs with the hiring of Scott Blackmun as chief executive in 2010.

That's why this number is more significant than anything in the tax filing: 14.

That is the number of new (9) and renewing (5) sponsors-suppliers-licensees who have signed on with the USOC during Blackmun's 17 months as the boss. Seven are full sponsors.

The new sponsor names in that group include biggies like BP, BMW, TD Ameritrade, Citi and Kellogg's (the cereal maker had been a sponsor but did not renew after 2008.)

More importantly, about half those deals continue through 2016. A couple others, tied to current Olympic rights-holder NBC, seem likely to be continued when U.S. television rights beyond 2012 are sold next month.

Better yet: This will be the last tax filing in which the USOC's management folly of 2009 will show on the balance sheets, so let's get that out of the way now and then leave it behind. (If the word resplendent were applied to the USOC's accounting of itself during that period, the reference would have been to ``The Shining.'')

The absurd: the USOC was paying three CEOs in 2010: Blackmun, Stephanie Streeter and Jim Scherr.

The sublime (at least by comparison to 2009): Blackmun's total compensation ($638,407, which includes a salary of $425,995) plus the final chunks of severance due Streeter ($163,522) and Scherr ($116,252) still add up to less than. . .

. . . the absurd $1,006,336 that Streeter collected for working 10 months in 2009, when she was part of a USOC board of directors that engineered Scherr's ouster and then put her in place as interim CEO, a job for which she could not have been more ill-suited and overpaid.

The frightening part is Streeter might have gotten the job on a full-time basis were it not for a revolt against USOC management led by former USA Triathlon CEO Skip Gilbert and USA Gymnastics CEO Steve Penny.

That forced Streeter to withdraw from consideration as permanent CEO and led to a) the hiring of Blackmun and b) a commitment from the unpaid, volunteer board chairman, Larry Probst, to devote more effort to his role. Probst has proved to be more than just a man of his word, spending so much time and energy on USOC work it might as well be a full-time job for the retired CEO of Electronic Arts.

By trimming staff and costs, taking a lower salary than those of his immediate predecessors and building stability, Blackmun saw his first tax year end with the USOC on financial track at the midpoint of its four-year budgeting period.

Comparing revenues and expenses year-to-year is impossible because certain revenues (share of TV rights, share of global Olympic sponsorship) arrive in higher amounts as the next Summer Games approach, and expenses also are higher in Olympic years.

Even line-by-line, comparing the 2009 numbers to those for 2010 is like comparing apples to aardvarks, because some million-dollar items in one year either are zero or not accounted for separately in the other.

Trying to compare 2010 to the last Winter Olympic year, 2006, also is difficult because the itemization of revenue sources is labeled differently.

For instance: The 2010 revenue is an impressive 22 percent higher than 2006, but one cannot determine exactly from the 990s how much of that came from monies the USOC did not self-generate, namely the controversial U.S. share of TV rights and global IOC sponsorship.

Unless I am totally misreading the way negotiations between the IOC and USOC are going over the festering issue of how much the USOC gets from those pots, it seems the USOC is ready to accept a smaller share.

Such a new deal may be struck much earlier than both sides originally agreed (negotiations originally were not supposed to begin until 2013). Even if it does not take effect for several more years, the USOC will need to find ways to replace whatever revenue is lost.

The total from those deals recently has represented nearly 50 percent of the USOC's income over four years. According to the tax filing, broadcast rights revenue alone in 2010 (a year when the USOC receives a big chunk) amounted to 42 percent of the $250 million total revenue for the only major national Olympic committee in the world that gets no government support.

Blackmun and his team have met the managerial challenges left by a decade's worth of intermittent turmoil and internal battles. The financial challenges remain, complicated by the economy and the likelihood there will not be a revenue-boosting Olympics in the United States before 2026.

Blackmun is an attorney who ran operations for AEG, one of the world's biggest sports arena managers and event promoters. Probst guided the development of EA into the gold-medal property in the world of video games. Pretty good credentials for guys trying to manage a sports organization, even one as inherently peculiar as the USOC, and build revenue streams to support the world's leading Olympic team.

There is good reason to expect they can make future 990s look shiny enough that calling them sublime won't seem even the slightest bit absurd.

May 10, 2011

That's about how much more money the IOC got from NBC's deal for the 2010 and 2012 Olympics than had been offered by Fox, the next highest bidder.

So the IOC should take that into account when it entertains bids early next month for U.S. rights to the next two - or four -- Olympic Games after 2012.

The difference for 2010/12 actually was about $900 million. Fox bid $1.3 billion, while NBC's bid, including a $200 million IOC sponsorship investment from its then parent company, General Electric, totaled $2.2 billion. The breakdown was $820 million for the 2010 Winter Games and $1.18 billion for the 2012 Summer Games.

``I think they (NBC) got suckered by the other networks,'' said IOC member Richard Pound, a Montreal attorney who had been the IOC's principal negotiator on all U.S. rights deals going back to 1988 and continuing through those for 2008.

NBC wouldn't have lost a reported $200 million on the 2010 Winter Games had it not overbid by so much and then been caught in a recessionary economy. (And who knows what the financials will be a year from now in London?)

I know caveat emptor applies here. Some may also want to taunt NBC with the old saw about a fool and his money being easily parted.

But the IOC had told U.S. networks it wanted $2 billion for 2010 and 2012. NBC, which has become a loyal and valuable broadcast partner to the IOC, took that request at face value and wound up with egg on its face.

Which means, to help pay the cleaning bill, the IOC should accept NBC's bid next month even if it falls slightly below those from other contenders, likely ESPN and Fox.

(Full disclosure: Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics, and I share an old college tie, and I was paid to appear on a Universal Sports show during the 2010 Olympics.)

NBC has broadcast every Summer Olympics from 1988 on, as well as the Winter Olympics from 2002 on. No person in the United States is more invested in the Olympics -- emotionally, philosophically, and financially -- than Ebersol since he took time off from Yale to become a researcher for ABC at the 1968 Summer Games.

Does that make a difference to the IOC? Yes and no.

IOC member Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico, now the IOC point man on the bid process for U.S. rights, said there will be no discount for NBC because of its having overpaid for 2010 - 2012. But Carrion insisted the winner won't necessarily be the network that bids the most.

``We value greatly the relationship we have had with NBC, but that is not an issue here,'' said Carrion, chairman and CEO of financial services company Popular, Inc. and a deservedly leading candidate to become the next IOC president. ``The issue is wanting a fair process so everyone is bidding under the same conditions.

``We want to hear about specific plans for coverage and promotion. It's not just about who bids $1 more.''

ESPN officials have indicated they are inclined to show everything live, no matter the time of day, which would please hard-core Olympics fans interested more in results than narrative. NBC has been flogged for delaying much of its coverage to prime time in New York -- and three hours later on the West Coast.

But its Vancouver ratings, especially during the first week, were what the network promised its advertisers. NBC drew more viewers over the 17 days of its Olympic coverage than ABC, CBS and Fox combined.

``Some have criticized Dick's coverage, but we have no complaints,'' Carrion said. ``Dick knows how to tell a story.

``NBC has the status of knowing how things have worked the past 20 years. Whether that's an advantage or disadvantage, I don't know.''

The issue of a discount is complicated because the TV rights money goes to several constituencies -- organizing committee, international federations, national Olympic committee. That makes it difficult for the IOC to accept less than the highest bid because, as Pound said, ``You are spending someone else's money.''

``On the other hand,'' Pound added, ``those people got more money the last time than perhaps they might have reasonably expected.''

That also was the case when NBC bid 56 percent more for the Sydney Games than it had for Atlanta. In about a five-month period of 1995, in separate deals covering all five Olympics from 2000 through 2008, NBC lined the IOC's coffers with $3.5 billion. The second deal, $2.3 billion for two Summer Games (2004-08) and one Winter Games (2006), then was the largest broadcast deal in history.

Those long-term, lucrative deals went a long way to helping the IOC maintain its enviable financial position through the dot-com bust and the recession of the past 11 years.

Carrion told the Associated Press last month he expected the rights for 2014 and 2016 to bring in more than NBC paid for 2010 and 2012 and that the IOC has offered the option to present bids that also included 2018 and 2020.

NBC's new owner, Comcast, has been very ambivalent in its public statements about how important it considers getting future Olympics, although GE's president of Olympic sponsorship, Peter Foss, recently noted in a Sports Business Journal interview that GE still owns 49 percent of NBC and maintains strong intetrest in Olympic sponsorship.

General Electric was able to use its Olympic link effectively in China and should be able to do the same in Brazil, a new China in terms of rapid economic growth.

And the IOC should understand that reducing the number of interested bidders is not a profitable idea. ABC, which once was the U.S. network of the Olympics, ceased being a player after having overbid for the 1988 Winter Games.

``NBC is the only network that has had the Olympics in its DNA,'' Pound said. ``I had great faith in Dick Ebersol. For me, that would go into the mix (of deciding who gets the rights.) Whether that gives you a $100 million edge or not, that's a different issue.''

Any U.S. network bidding for the next four Olympics can be assured of just one in a time zone friendly to the United States: the 2016 Summer Games in Rio.

Plus, they all get the booby prize: the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which everyone expects to be very costly to broadcasters from the standpoint of transportation, logistics and security, given the Wild West mentality that reigns in Russia and Sochi's proximity to the persistent flashpoints in the Caucasus.

The host cities for the 2018 Winter and 2020 Summer Games have yet to be chosen.

in July, a month after the TV rights bidding, the IOC members will chose from among Munich, Annecy, France and Pyeongchang, South Korea for 2018.

South Korea would be best in terms of time zones for live prime time in the U.S., since late morning in Pyeongchang is evening in the United States.

That could mean having a U.S. network ask to schedule several sports -- figure skating, speed skating, hockey -- in the Korean morning, as was done with swimming for NBC's benefit in Beijing.

The speed disciplines in skiing already would take place in the morning, but potential weather delays (remember Nagano in 1998?) make programming around them tricky -- and who knows if there still will be charismatic and talented U.S. skiers like Lindsey Vonn, Julia Mancuso and Bode Miller in 2018?

If ESPN wins the rights to Games with time-zone issues and decides to show everything live, it could also repackage the day's top stories for a prime-time show on its flagship channel or on ABC. If there were live events at that time, ESPN could put them on one of its roughly 16,243 other channels.

Cable behemoth ESPN has a big plus in owning over-the-air network ABC, which answers the IOC's long-held insistence that the Olympics should be available free to viewers. With the explosion of cable networks worldwide willing to pay big bucks for rights, the IOC has modified that philosophy to mean some Olympic coverage should be available free.

Since ESPN has a network in Portuguese-speaking Brazil as well as eight other regional networks serving the Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas, that could make the Rio Olympics -- the first in South America -- especially attractive to ESPN.

It is clear that even in difficult economic times, ESPN is the 800-pound gorilla of the sports marketplace. If it wants the Olympics badly enough, ESPN could make a bid so high the IOC could not refuse it, not even to repay NBC for its past largesse and Dick Ebersol for being the fairy godfather of the Olympics.

May 05, 2011

The International Olympic Committee now apparently thinks it wasn't such a good idea for its president, Jacques Rogge, to have declined any comment on the death of Osama bin Laden on the grounds it was a ``political issue.''

Wednesday, after being questioned about Rogge's (non) stance by USA Today, the IOC gave that newspaper's columnist, Christine Brennan, a statement from Rogge about bin Laden.

Here is Rogge's statement, delivered through IOC spokesman Mark Adams, as it appeared in Brennan's Thursday column:

``I was asked a question about the impact of bin Laden's death on security around the Olympic Games, and that is the question I answered.

``My willingness to let political leaders comment on the larger impact of his death should not be taken as a commentary on bin Laden. Like everyone in the civilized world, I was deeply shocked and sickened by the events of Sept. 11, just as I have been deeply saddened by every terrorist act before or since then. I have seen the effects of terrorism at first hand at the 1972 Munich Games, where I competed as an athlete (for Belgium), and again in the 1996 Atlanta Games.

``Needless to say, I wholeheartedly condemn terrorists and their vile acts — it is the antithesis of everything the Olympic movement stands for."

That was exactly the sort of general but clear statement Rogge should have made when he was asked directly about bin Laden by journalist at a conference in Qatar Monday.

When I had contacted Adams Monday for clarification on Rogge's having said, ``What happened to Mr. Bin Laden is a political issue on which I do not wish to comment,'' the IOC spokesman replied by email he was enroute to South Africa and did not know the context in which Rogge's remarks were made.

A few hours later, I condemned Rogge's silence regarding the death of an avowed mass murderer in a Globetrotting entry that was reprinted in full Tuesday by an German sports newsletter, SportIntern, widely read by those connected to the Olympic movement.

In her column, which you can read by clicking here, Brennan also criticized Rogge for his earlier decision not to comment and noted the IOC long has taken positions on political issues.

To those who have replied to my column by saying bin Laden had nothing to do with sports, the answer is that his war against the West -- particularly the United States, notably the 9/11 attacks for which he claimed credit -- was the major factor causing the dramatic increase in security for every major international sporting event, especially the Olympics.

Security, provided largely by governments in host countries rather than event organizers, now is by far the highest cost associated with staging an Olympics.

This wasn't the first time Rogge has reacted belatedly to criticism of his failure to speak out about a political issue. The other involved China's disdain for human rights.

Five months before the 2008 Summer Games were to open in Beijing, intense protest against China broke out along the route of the Olympic torch relay in London and Paris.

That prompted the Chinese to dispatch a paramilitary force to protect the torch. Members of that force acted so aggressively that Olympic champion Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London 2012 Olympic organizing committee, called them ``horrible'' and ``thugs'' after the protectors pushed him out of the way several times.

A few days later, Rogge called on the Chinese to honor the clearly empty promise they made upon being awarded the Games in 2001 to use the Olympics as a catalyst to, in Rogge's words, ``advance the social agenda of China, including human rights.'' The IOC president eloquently called it a ``moral engagement'' the Chinese needed to respect.

For the record, since this involves sports and words, I am mystified about those President Barack Obama chose, ``But we don't need to spike the football,'' in explaining to CBS Wednesday why the United States would not release photographs of the dead bin Laden.

First of all, a U.S. president always is speaking to the world, not just his own country, and the reference to a celebration used in U.S. football would likely mean nothing to the rest of the world. Moreover, the football analogy trivializes death.

In the case of IOC president Jacques Rogge's statement to USA Today on bin Laden, these are the easily understood last words:

Better late than never.

Photo: Jacques Rogge speaking at the 9th World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Qatar (Reuters)

May 02, 2011

During Chicago's attempt to win the 2016 Olympics, some people who were part of the Chicago bid effort told me they had come away from meetings with Jacques Rogge feeling the International Olympic Committee president harbored either antipathy or classic Old World disdain toward the United States.

I thought about that today, when Rogge declined to comment about the killing of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. forces other to say, rather curiously, it was a ``political issue.''

This was Rogge's Monday statement on Bin Laden at the 9th World Conference on Sport and Environment in Doha, Qatar, as reported by journalists at the conference:

``What happened to Mr. Bin Laden is a political issue on which I do not wish to comment.''

A political issue? Isn't that something that has to do with elections? Or whether to cut taxes or spending? Or whom to appoint as a cabinet minister?

Bringing a self-avowed mass murderer to justice is a political issue? Avenging (or, in less virulent but only slightly different terms, seeking retribution for) the slaughter of thousands of innocents -- more than just those who died in the 9/11 attacks --killed by Bin Laden's Al Qaeda followers is a political issue? Ending the career of the world's most notorious terrorist, who was at war against the West, is a political issue?

I asked IOC spokesman Mark Adams for clarification of Rogge's remarks, but Adams said in an email he was enroute to South Africa and unable to elaborate because he didn't know the context.

But this clearly isn't a case of something being lost in translation, because Rogge, a native of Belgium, is perfectly fluent in at least English, French, Flemish and Spanish.

A political issue? Was it a political issue when U.S. soldiers saved Belgium -- and much more -- by stopping the final advance of another mass murderer, Adolf Hitler, in Belgium's Ardennes forest during the final winter of World War II? The cost was nearly 20,000 American dead and 47,500 wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest combat of World War II. The reward was a free Belgium, even for those citizens quick to wave their swastikas when they saw the Nazis on the march.

Did the 6,000 U.S. World War II soldiers whose bodies lie in Belgian graves refuse to take a stand, Jacques? Or those who gave their lives helping liberate Belgium in World War I?

I'll tell you what is a political issue, Jacques: for the IOC to give the 2008 Olympics to a repressive Chinese government under the misguided premise that the Summer Games will bring change, then to sit by silently as the Chinese stifled legitimate protest and dissent and the free flow of information during the Olympics and returned to the worst of their repressive ways once the Olympics were over.

And what about your calling out Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt for his joyous show while winning the Beijing 100 meters, as if he were some ``boy'' from the large part of Africa -- the Congo -- that Belgium once ruled? That was a political issue -- the politics of colonialism.

And, as several readers have pointed out since this was posted Monday, what about the IOC's continued failure to acknowledge, officially and permanently, the deaths of the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches massacred by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics, an Olympics in which Rogge competed? The IOC's repeated excuse? Too political.

Who were you afraid of offending by refusing to comment on Bin Laden, Jacques? The Iranian authorities who defile Olympic ideals by forcing their athletes to withdraw rather than compete against Israelis? The countries that either force their women athletes to compete in restrictive dress or don't have any women at all on their Olympic teams?

The IOC always pretends to be above politics yet wants to be seen as a player in global affairs -- sometimes for good, as in the lengthy ban of South Africa because of its laws regarding racial discrimination; sometimes for bad, as in the awards it bestowed on ruthless despots like Nicolae Ceaucescu of Romania and Erich Honecker of Germany.

Not comment on a political issue? Didn't the IOC ban the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from the 1992 Summer Olympics -- but allow individual athletes to compete under the Olympic flag -- because the country was under U.N. sanctions for its aggression into Croatia and Bosnia?

No comment on a political issue? Didn't the IOC -- and the bigots who then ran the U.S. Olympic Committee -- happily play along with Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics, thereby commenting favorably on a Nazi ideology all too apparent even before Kristallnacht and the genocide that followed?

Of course, this is the same IOC that tried its damndest to prohibit an appearance of the tattered Ground Zero flag at the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which began only five months after 9/11. As former USOC spokesman Mike Moran noted in a commentary he wrote Monday, the IOC also called that idea ``too political'' before caving in to a firestorm of outrage and allowing the flag to be carried by eight U.S. athletes and three New York Port Authority police, with an honor guard of New York City police and firefighters.

No comment, Jacques, but you give Bin Laden the deference of calling him, ``Mister?''

Discretion is one thing, the moral equivocation of ``no comment'' quite another.

Perhaps it attests to the true stature of the IOC: a pompous, feckless bunch whose president is the Grand Panjandrum.

April 28, 2011

Believe it or not, the International Olympic Committee is capable of using common sense.

That was apparent in its decision allowing swimmer Jessica Hardy to compete at the 2012 London Olympics if she makes the U.S. team rather than trying to use its virtually unfettered power to shove a nonsensical rule down her throat.

Of course, the IOC still won't back down on the obvious double jeopardy created generally by Olympic Charter Rule 45, which says an athlete who gets a doping violation suspension of more than six months is banned from the next Olympics.

According to people familiar with an April 21 letter sent to the U.S. Olympic Committee, the IOC relented on Hardy because of a timing issue.

The IOC executive board made Rule 45 effective just three days before Hardy tested positive for the banned stimulant clenbuterol at the 2008 U.S. Olympic trials.

With that in mind, the IOC gave Hardy a pass for London because it decided there was little chance she could have known about Rule 45 at the time of a July 4, 2008 positive test that would cost her a spot on the 2008 Olympic team.

In as statement announcing the IOC decision issued Thursday by her attorney, Howard Jacobs, Hardy said, ``I am ecstatic that the IOC has recognized my unique situation and that this rule does not apply to me. With this final hurdle now behind me, I can focus 100 percent of my efforts on preparing for and representing my country at next year's Olympic Games, a lifelong dream that was taken away from me in 2008.''

The Hardy doping case led to controversy because she was named to the 2008 U.S. Olympic team before the doping test results came back -- far slower than they should have because of a clerical error at the testing lab. When Hardy took herself off the team because there was not enough time for an appeal, it was too late to name a replacement.

Tara Kirk, the swimmer in line to replace Hardy, claimed in a Blog she wrote for the web site of WCSN (now Universal Sports) that both the USOC and USA Swimming knew of the positive test before the entry deadline.

Hardy, now 24, eventually would argue to an American Arbitration Association panel that she had unknowingly taken clenbuterol, a substance she claimed never to have heard of before, in a nutritional supplement. While athletes are responsible for anything they take, unwittingly or not, the panel gave her a one-year suspension rather than the two years mandated by the World Anti-Doping Agency code.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport, a sports ``Supreme Court,'' dismissed a WADA appeal for the suspension to be two years but did not rule on whether Rule 45 would apply to her. Hardy came back in 2009 and set a world record in the 100-meter breaststroke.

Wednesday, the IOC and USOC agreed to ask CAS jointly for clarification on whether Rule 45 can be applied so cases similar to Hardy's would be resolved well before the next Olympics begin July 27, 2012 in London.

Merritt received a two-year suspension for the doping code violation -- later reduced to 21 months after appeal to the American Arbitration Association. That suspension ends in 2011. But Rule 45 would effectively make it a three-year suspension.

Photo: Jessica Hardy wore the official team shirt at USA Swimming's 2008 Olympic team media day July 12, 2008 but would be banned from the Games for a positive doping trest eight days earlier. (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

April 27, 2011

In a new take on the idea that opposites attract, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee announced Wednesday they have joined to ask for a ruling on whether the IOC can ban athletes from a subsequent Olympics after a doping suspension that would otherwise end before the Games.

The idea behind bringing the case together to the Court of Arbitration for Sport is both sides want clarity well before the 2012 Olympics on what could be a messy and costly legal issue.

The most notable potential victim of an IOC rule that should be thrown out is reigning Olympic 400-meter champion LaShawn Merritt, the runner banned for two years after testing positive in the fall of 2009 for a steroid found in the over-the-counter sexual enhancement product, ExtenZe.

Merritt received a two-year suspension for the doping code violation -- later reduced to 21 months after appeal to the American Arbitration Association. That suspension ends in 2011.

The arbitrators also found the IOC rule, passed in June, 2008, constitutes ``double jeopardy'' and ``mere skulduggery,'' a position the USOC would (silently, so far) agree with.

The IOC, needless to say, has been vociferous in its defense of a policy, now rule 45 of the Olympic Charter, that absurdly stretches Merritt's effective suspension to three years as it relates to the Olympics. Rule 45 allows the IOC to ban from the next Olympics any athlete receiving a doping suspension of more than six months

That both the USOC and IOC are willing to play nice in seeking a definitive resolution of the issue underscores the new levels of cooperation between the two organizations in the past 16 months - even if they will be making opposite arguments to CAS.

And, while there was no mention of Merritt in the release issued by both parties Wednesday, there is no doubt it is central to the need for a ruling on what the release called ``a crucial issue for both organizations.''

Been meaning to get to this topic for two weeks, but the tragic events in Japan and their effect on the World Figure Skating Championships kept pushing it to the back burner.

I waited long enough to reach April Fools Day, which means the timing now is perfect.

For nearly a decade, there was no day that symbolized the way the U.S. Olympic Committee operated than April Fools.

That's because the people who ran the USOC relentlessly did things that seemed like either bad jokes, unbelievable scenarios or both. The USOC's leaders often were not only April fools but May fools, June fools, July fools. . .you get the idea.

Which used to make it a journalist's dream to cover the USOC. You couldn't make up the tales of excess, infighting and ineptitude that led to a constant turnover in top personnel, both volunteer and salaried, making the organization a global laughingstock.

Used to.

So it literally pained me to hear new USOC board member and USA Hockey chief executive Dave Ogrean say the most recent USOC board meeting was ``frankly fun.''

For you, maybe.

For us, the new era of competence ushered in by chairman Larry Probst and CEO Scott Blackmun is frankly boring.

That's just the way Probst and Blackmun want it.

And the result is the next U.S. city that bids for the Olympics shouldn't face the humiliating defeats suffered by Chicago and New York. Both deserved better than Chicago's last-place finish to an inferior winning bid by Rio and New York's distant, next-to-last finish against a strong field when London won four years earlier.

``This organization is in better shape than it has been in a long time,'' Ogrean said.

He's right.

While the USOC's financial health beyond the 2012 Olympics remains uncertain, given that -- as Brian Gomez noted in the Colorado Springs Gazette -- six of its current top 15 sponsorships expire after the London Games, there is no doubt of the progress the USOC has made in both administrative stability and international relations.

Those two areas are intertwined, since leading International Olympic Committee officials always complained they could never figure out who to deal with at the USOC because there was a new person every week.

And that progress has come without a full-time international relations director, as Probst and Blackmun have combined to do their version of ``If it's Tuesday, it must be Guadalajara.''

In the last 18 months, Probst has plunged headlong into a post he thought would take only a few hours a month when he became the volunteer chairman in 2008. Blackmun, who became CEO in early 2010, has found time to add globetrotter to the job description.

Their efforts were rewarded last month with each getting a spot on one of the IOC's most important commissions: Probst, international relations; and Blackmun, marketing.

It is the first time in two decades that the chief executive of the USOC has been on an IOC commission. (Coincidentally, the last CEO in that position, Harvey Schiller, also got a place on the IOC's Women and Sport Commission in February.)

Probst's appointment gives the United States two of the 27 places on the international relations commission. (The other belongs to Bill Hybl, the former USOC president.)

The marketing spot for Blackmun is especially significant, given that the USOC has been embroiled for several years in what had been publicly contentious negotiations with the IOC over the revenue share the USOC is contractually owed from both U.S. television rights and the IOC's global sponsorship.

Blackmun is one of two U.S. members of the 22-person marketing group, which reviews and studies sources of revenue and financing for the IOC. The other, IOC member Jim Easton, may not be able to attend many of its meetings because of health issues, which means Blackmun is carrying the ball.

It was great fun for the media to have those revenue sharing negotiations enlivened by verbal broadsides from former USOC chairman Peter Ueberroth and former IOC member Hein Verbruggen of the Netherlands. It also got both sides nowhere and helped undermine Chicago's 2016 bid.

Lately, the only news from those negotiations has been 1) one relatively two-bit issue, the USOC contribution to Olympic Games costs, was resolved ahead of schedule; and 2) discussions on the big bucks main issue are ongoing.

This is the anodyne answer Probst gave to the state of the negotiations at a press conference following the March 15 board meeting:

``Scott updated the board on the discussions that have taken place over the last few months. Obviously, we are not going to get into details. We are encouraged by the tone of the discussions.''

No yuks there.

And no stories with headlines saying ``USOC Chaos Continues'' or ``Another USOC Mess.''

Or, if one does appear, it must come -- at least for now -- with a caveat:

October 26, 2010

The U.S. skaters with the first-place trophy at the 2009 World Team Trophy figure skating event (Photo courtesy Scottie Bibb / U.S. Figure Skating)

By Philip Hersh

The International Olympic Committee's executive board announced Monday it is ``looking favorably'' at the addition of seven events for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia and has given President Jacques Rogge the final say in the matter, a decision Rogge is expected to make at the end of April based party on how the events come off in 2011.

Among the seven is a team event in figure skating, an idea International Skating Union President Ottavio Cinquanta outlined in broad strokes for me during a break in last June's 2016 bid city presentations in Lausanne, Switzerland. At the time, I was more concerned about Chicago's bid than figure skating, so I put the team skating stuff on hold in my mind.

With the IOC announcement, I figured it was time to discuss the concept again with Cinquanta.

``I am 99.9 percent sure this will happen,'' Cinquanta told me by telephone Tuesday. ``We are very pleased with the confidence the IOC has shown in us. If everything goes as well as we expect at the World Team Trophy in Japan (in April, 2011), the first three days of the figure skating program in Sochi will be the team event.''

Cinquanta then gave me some details on how the team event will work:

*Ten teams (one per country) will qualify, based on results from previous ISU events, with the qualifying system yet to be worked out.

*Each team will have a men's and women's singles skater, a pair and a dance team. (At the 2009 World Trophy, the first such competition, each country had two men's and women's singles skaters. one pair and once dance team.)

*Scoring will be cumulative.

*Five countries will be eliminated after the short program.

*Each country advancing to the long program can make two lineup substitutions from a pool including all the skaters qualified for the four individual Olympic events and the official substitutes. Making the subs eligible would be of special significance to countries with only one entry in an individual discipline, should that skater or couple become ill or injured. But the official substitutes would not be living in the Olympic Village, and Sochi is not easy to reach at the 11th hour, so countries thinking of using a sub would need to find the subs alternate housing in the Olympic city.

*Skaters can do the same programs they use in the individual events.

What Cinquanta imagines is a situation where, for example, the United States finishes second in the team event with Jeremy Abbott as its men's skater and then another U.S. man, Evan Lysacek, goes on to win individual gold with a score that would have made the difference in the team event. That would, Cinquanta hopes, lead to a publicity-attracting controversy about lineups, like lineup discussions in traditional team sports.

``This would be something spicy,'' Cinquanta said.

The trick, of course, will be for a country's skating authorities to convince a skater with a strong shot at an individual Olympic medal -- especially gold -- to enter the team event as well. Some skaters might think of it as a good warmup. Some might think it is too physically and mentally taxing. Some might worry about ``wasting'' a great performance in the team competition.

The team event will lead to some rejiggering -- but not compression -- of the rest of the figure skating program.

Cinquanta actually envisions adding a second day of rest between the singles' short programs and free skates. That would be feasible by mixing the events: instead of each discipline running consecutively, you could have the pairs short followed by the men's short and then the pairs final, men's final, etc. And skating has gained one competition day with the elimination of compulsories in ice dancing.

``We will have a mix that is attractive to television,'' Cinquanta said.

The ISU's motivation for adding the team event? Also television, especially in the biggest skating markets: United States, Canada, Japan and Russia. While TV's infatuation with the sport has declined dramatically since the madness that followed the Harding - Kerrigan affair, skating still grabs among the biggest Winter Olympic audiences in those four nations (and they will grow, percentage-wise, in Canada and Russia if the National Hockey League does not send its players to Sochi.)

Some feel synchronized skating should be the team event added to figure skating, but it involves a substantial number of additional athletes and cost for the organizing committee.

Yet the IOC is prepared to add 60-odd additional athletes should Rogge approve four of the other six new events: women's ski jumping; men's and women's ski halfpipe, ski slopestyle and snowboard slopestyle. The remaining two, biathlon mixed team relay and luge team relay, would use athletes already entered in individual events.

Slopestyle and halfpipe follow the IOC's pattern of adding X Games events in the hope of making the Winter Olympics more appealing to the skateboard generation.

Women's ski jumping sued unsuccessfully for inclusion in the 2010 Winter Games. Its proponents felt a mix of dismay and hope by the six-month delay in what they expected to be IOC approval Monday.

``I have to think positively,'' said Lindsey Van, 25, of Park City, Utah, winner of the inaugural women's jumping world title in 2009. ``They didn't say no, so we are headed in the right direction.''

Germany's Ulrike Graessler, silver medalist at the 2009 worlds, was less sanguine, telling the Associated Press the delay is ``very sad, and it hurts a lot.''

The IOC has harped on the relatively low depth of top-level jumpers and narrow breadth of countries involved as the reason to deny women a place in the Olympics. Yet other sports, including men's and women's bobsled, have similarly small numbers. And women's pole vaulting lacked depth and breadth when it was admitted to the Olympics in 2000.

As I noted in a Blog last year, one of the jumpers in 2000, was an 18-year-old Russian who failed to clear the very low opening height. That was Yelena Isinbayeva, who has gone on to establish a standard of excellence that may never be matched in women's vaulting.

Cinquanta wants something spicy.

Many of the old men who have voted to deny women jumpers their deserved Olympic place still yearn for a world in which women are frozen in the mold of sugar and spice and everything nice.

About the author

Philip Hersh grew up in Boston but has lived in Evanston since 1977. He has worked at the Tribune since 1984 and has focused on international sports and the Olympics since 1987. In 2011, the German sports publication, SportIntern, named Hersh among the most influential people in world sports, the 11th time he has earned that annual recognition. He was graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in French and a specialization in early 19th Century French literature. Prior to joining the Tribune, Hersh worked for the Gloucester, Mass., Daily Times, the Baltimore Evening Sun, the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times.